Page 53 of Kill For Me Kill For You
It didn’t take long to throw their belongings into the suitcases. Ruth dressed hurriedly in jeans, boots and a sweater.
‘Where are we going to go?’ she asked.
Scott checked his watch; it was almost ten.
‘Let’s start by getting out of the city. We can go anywhere, but for now let’s just leave. I want to go someplace no one will follow us, and no one would think to look. It’s okay now, honey. We’re going to be just fine. We’ll take a cab to Grand Central and jump on a train.’
24
Amanda
Amanda swiped her MTA card at the turnstile in Christopher Street subway station and made for the platform. As she turned the corner, she glanced over her shoulder.
There were a few people behind her. A mother and teenage daughter. An elderly man with a cane. And a man who jogged through the entrance, looking around. He was thirty feet away, at least. She estimated he was over six feet tall and he looked well built. Sandy brown hair. His head turned from side to side, and stopped when he saw Amanda. Then he moved towards her, quickly.
Amanda gritted her teeth against the protests from her knee, and moved down the stairs quickly to the platform. A train was just pulling in. She could hear the screech of brakes, and then the doors rolling open. Amanda reached the platform, moved swiftly onto the train and made for the back of the carriage. There were a handful of people seated already. She dared not look behind her.
The warning signal sounded, and within a few seconds the doors closed. The train started to move just as the man reached the platform. Amanda ducked down in her seat, making herself small, but never letting the man from her sight.
She didn’t recognize him. Yet she was sure he was the same man who’d been in the black Escalade outside Quinn’s house. The same Escalade that had parked behind her car and the same man who’d got out of that car and followed her.
And she had no idea who he might be.
A cop? Personal security for Quinn?
It didn’t matter. She wasn’t going back for her car any time soon. She looked around the carriage and noticed some of the people there were giving her attention. Their stares quickly shifted as she met each gaze. It was then she realized she was panting – out of breath – but more than that. She touched her face. Her hand came away wet. There were spots of drying blood on her cheek. She wiped them away with spit.
Amanda leaned back in the seat, biting down as she stretched out her injured knee. By the time the train rolled into Times Square her breathing hadn’t eased. She was jacked up on adrenaline. And this wasn’t going to pass any time soon.
Not wanting to draw attention, she changed trains, got on the #7 to Grand Central. It was a good place to lose herself. At Grand Central, she got off the train, went up the escalator and into the main concourse. The warm marble halls always reminded her of Christmas time. The painted stars above her head, the vast glistening chandeliers, the solid brass four-faced clock that sits atop the center of the information booth. There were people around the booth, waiting, checking their cell phones. Every New Yorker knew the clock. The phrase, ‘meet you at the clock’ only ever meant this one.
Ahead was the escalator to the Metlife Building, and 45thStreet beyond. She stood on the right, gazed up as she ascended.
A couple got on the escalator to her right, coming down onto the concourse. They were about her age – a man and a woman. The woman had soft, chestnut hair and wide, fearful eyes. Those eyes were so round, so watchful, that they reminded her of the opal faces of the clock she’d just passed. She had linked arms with her partner.
As they passed each other on the escalator, Amanda glanced at the woman. She stared back, and then both women quickly looked away. In that half a second, Amanda knew comfort. Here was someone else, just as afraid and uncertain. The angst and trepidation poured from her eyes. And in that moment when their gaze had met, Amanda didn’t feel alone. In a city of eight and a half million, loneliness is common. Most people were alone. Alone as they traveled through the belly of the city in packed subway cars. Alone as they weaved through the brick and steel canyons of Manhattan on sidewalks thick with strangers. Alone as they lay in bed at night with their problems and their pain.
Just then, Amanda knew the companionship found in the fear and loneliness of others.
She reached the top of the escalator, paused, turned and watched to see if the man from the Escalade was following her. She waited for a minute. No sign of him.
Making her way through the lobby of the Metlife Building, and then into the cold night air on 45thStreet, Amanda’s shoulders dropped, the tension easing down a notch.
She took out her cell phone. Called Naomi.
No answer. She didn’t want to leave a message either. Maybe it was better that they didn’t talk tonight. She just wanted to get home. And she knew when she got into the apartment and closed the door the weight of what she’d done tonight would hit her like a freight train.
It was two thirty in the morning when Amanda got back to her apartment. She threw her keys on the kitchen table and went immediately to the bathroom.
She vomited once, and her body wanted more but there was nothing left in her stomach. Her throat raw, a vile taste in her mouth, Amanda ran hot water into the tub, stripped her clothes off and put them in a trash bag, along with her coat. She hadn’t looked too closely, but she guessed there would be blood spatter on them. Definitely the gloves. Those clothes would need to find their way into a random dumpster later that day. She managed to lever herself into the water mostly using her arms. It was hot. Much hotter than was comfortable, but her skin would soon get used to it. She needed the heat.
Her knee looked like a football. There was a cut across it that stung like hell, but it wasn’t deep and had already closed. It didn’t look bad compared to the purple and black bruising forming over the knee cap. Amanda kneaded the muscles and tendons in her knee, and then her shin, which had begun to ache because she was dragging that leg. Her neck was still red, tender, and she knew there would be some livid bruising on it tomorrow. She could cover that with thick foundation.
It had all gone to shit last night, and she knew she was lucky to be alive. That phrase formed in her mind.
You’reluckyto be alive.
It wasn’t her conscious mind speaking. This was her internal thought process, which couldn’t really be categorized as conscious or unconscious, because when that thought occurred she found it to be true – to her great surprise.
